


A Favor Returned

by FortuneSurfer



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Will helps Matthew out, set in an unspecified time and place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneSurfer/pseuds/FortuneSurfer
Summary: Brown compels Will to make a decision — just as he did in the corridor back then at the BSHCI.





	A Favor Returned

**Author's Note:**

> That's my first attempt to write in English and I couldn't be more grateful to brownberrypie! You are a wonderful beta reader and even more wonderful person! : 333 Without you, there wouldn't be this work!

Will experiences déjà vu, even though the circumstances are quite different: it’s not the buzzer that causes the door to open, but a confident knock; they are separated by a threshold, not by the bars of his cell. And it’s not him who needs a favor this time.

 

Will isn’t surprised — when he had heard the news the day before, he instantly recalled that his admirer had a nose for excellent hiding places.

 

“Morning, Mr. Graham. I'll cut to the chase right away: I need to hide here for a couple of weeks”.

 

“And what made you think you will get to do that?”

 

“You owe me.”

 

“I don’t owe you anything: you didn’t kill Hannibal Lecter.”

 

“And you weren’t the Chesapeake Ripper… But let’s not allow details to ruin our friendship.”

 

Brown compels him to make a decision — just as he did in the corridor back then at the BSHCI.

 

Will turns around and goes back into the house leaving the door behind him open. Matthew enters with a toothy grin on his face. Will already knows he won’t need to take out the gun.

 

///

 

It’s almost as if things are trying to come full circle, but aren’t quite coming: a long time ago Will shared his breakfast with another murderer desperate for his attention. And now Brown is eating the pancakes Will has made for himself this morning; with healthy appetite and occasional pleased moans between chews. Will attentively registers each movement of Brown’s hand with a fork in it.

 

“How exactly did you manage to escape?”

 

“As a former employee, I used to spend more time in Chilton’s loony bin than in the dog-house I rented.”

 

Will snorts: whoever put Brown in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane was a halfwit of high caliber.

 

“In fact, I had already started to make escape plans when you had been there. In case you had chosen to run away.”

 

_With me_ , he doesn’t add, but the unspoken hangs thick in the air. Will returns to the initial topic.

 

“How did your plan work out at the end?”

 

“Not everything went smoothly, but I’m here, as you can see,” Brown accompanies his words with an elegant hand gesture.  
  
Show-off.

 

“Killed any more friends from work?” asks Will casually.

 

Matthew smirks.

 

“No. Murder wasn't necessary. And I figured you wouldn’t like it.”

 

Will realizes that they make eye contact and looks away.

 

///

 

Brown is a mutant who got rid of empathy in a way normal people sometimes get rid of an appendix, but it would be too much to expect Freddie Lounds to capture such significant subtlety in her latest article about his admirer’s escape. Still, Brown — _it’s Matthew, Mr. Graham_ — is unpleasantly surprised by her cover of the event.  
  
Will rubs the salt in: “I thought you liked Freddie’s writing approach.”

 

“Maybe before the bitch called me your ‘gory groupie‘.”

 

“What would you prefer?”

 

Brown slowly turns to him, puts his stolen smartphone aside, and eyes Will intensely without leaving the chair. Only then does Matthew ask him, from across the living room, with a skittish note in his voice: “What do you think, Mr. Graham?” Making a challenge to Will, of course.

 

It's been a while, but Matthew’s tableau is admittedly hard to forget. Unholy trinity embodied by a single wobbling silhouette — Judas, Satan and the Old Testament God inscrutable in his love for murder. A combination of how Hannibal sees himself and how Matthew and Will see him. Though at that time Hannibal must have thought of himself more as a martyr than anything else.

 

On the cross, for every evil… Hard to forget. Not because it was an offering made to him.  
  
Not _solely_ because of that.

 

“‘Disciple‘ [1],” says Will somewhat reluctantly.

 

“‘Deadly disciple‘, if she really wants to have an alliteration.”  
  
The sportive remark makes Will’s hand clench. It’s true. His admirer is a deadly weapon.

 

Their roles are reversed now: Will could place handcuffs on Matthew Brown’s wrists, since he hasn’t deleted Jack Crawford from his phone contacts, like he should have done long ago.

  
Matthew cocks his head to the side and Will can almost feel sharp talons of his admirer’s attention gently burying in his empathy to get him back from his thoughts.

 

“So, I take it, you have seen my tribute to you. Did you like it?”

 

…Hannibal getting a taste of his own medicine? Being strangled like he strangled Beverly, being bled out, like he did to Beverly. The artist consumed by the artwork, not unlike James Grey — but it wasn’t mercy or honor, it was pure humiliation. A grotesque and beautiful scene, still _reprehensibly satisfying_ , even after all this time…

 

Will looks at Matthew and finds himself reminded of a dog waiting for a treat, or a pat on the head. Or next throw of a frisbee. The next “get him!” Will doesn’t give it to him.

 

“It doesn’t matter, since you failed.”

 

Matthew nods.

 

“And I sure must compensate you for it. One way or another“, he murmurs, on the edge of a lopsided smile.

 

“Why do you want to be used by me?”

 

“I don’t wanna be used, I wanna be helpful to you, Mr. Graham. I consider myself worthy of being more than an instrument.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Let’s start with being neighbors for the next couple of weeks. And after that, well… I guess, we should try to find out together. What do you think?”

 

In the end Will decides not to dial Jack’s number.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] Obviously a reference to Disciples of Christ, one of whom was Matthew the Apostle.


End file.
